Page 1 of Dark Destiny: A New Thread in the Tapestry

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ANNANI

Khiann's eyes were open.

Annani did not move, did not breathe, and held herself so perfectly still that not a single fold of her gown stirred, lest the disturbance undo it, lest the world notice its error and close those eyes again.

The Fates had given her his eyes first.

They were blue, the exact shade she had carried in her memories for five thousand years, the same blue she had described to Tim when he drew Khiann's portrait, though he could never get it quite right.

Khiann's eyes had been seared into her memory and had never faded.

Nothing of his eyes had been lost.

Not the color, not the shape, not the way they sat wide and level. But the rest of him had not come back yet. His hair was still only a shadow on his scalp, his cheeks were still too hollow, and his skin was too pale for a male who had spent most of his life in the sun.

The Khiann she had carried in her memory had been broad and radiant, impossible to miss in a crowd, with hair that refused to stay put and always fell over his eyes, but her imagination filled in the missing details, and she saw him as he had been, not as he was now.

He was looking at her.

His gaze moved over her face, and there was wonder and intelligence in it, even warmth. It was not the vacant stare of an empty vessel. Khiann was in there, which was what mattered most. He was studying her, taking her in with an intensity in his gaze that would have left her breathless at seventeen.

It left her breathless now, even though there was not a flicker of recognition in his eyes.

She counted four heartbeats, then eight, and then stopped counting as she watched his face for the change she had imagined countless times, the widening, the softening, the moment he remembered her name and everything lost would come rushing back.

It did not.

He regarded her with curiosity but no history.

Annani had made her bargain, Khiann's life for his memories of her, and the Fates had taken her at her word, delivering exactly what she had asked for. She had offered it wholeheartedly, meaning every word, yet secretly she had hoped for mercy.

Did she not deserve it?

She had spent five thousand years carrying the light of a lost civilization across a dark world, building a clan from nothing but her own body and spirit.

Annani had tirelessly promoted the gods' agenda, generation after generation, in a world that fought her at every turn. Did she not deserve a small mercy, a single glance from her mate in which he looked at her and knew her?

Apparently not.

The Fates had given her precisely what she had asked for and nothing more. She had offered Khiann's memories of her in exchange for his return, whole in body and mind, and that was what she had gotten.

No more, no less.

Annani did not regret making the bargain, but she grieved what she had lost, and with that grief came tears. To shed them, though, would offend the Fates. They had done their part and deserved her gratitude, not her sorrow.

Annani straightened her spine and commanded the tears to retreat.

Grief and joy mixed together made a strange and potent elixir, sweet and bitter at once.

Annani chose to focus on the sweetness.

Khiann was back, whole in body and mind. That was all that mattered, and it was a reason to rejoice. He was awake, alert, and looking at her with the kind of appreciation a male showed a beautiful goddess, which was the best sign she could hope for that he was recovering, and that everything lost could be rebuilt.

Behind her, Alena sniffled, reminding Annani that she was not alone with Khiann in the ward. Still, she did not turn to look at her daughter because that would demand her shifting her gaze away from those vivid blue eyes she had waited five millennia to behold.

Annani could not look away no matter what else happened around her.